When a member of
Britain’s royal family says something – almost anything, except
possibly in Prince Charles’s case about organic farming –
so-called royal watchers immediately go into close textual analysis.
“What did he mean by that?” as the Habsburg empire’s Prince
Metternich is alleged to have remarked on hearing of the death of his
wily opponent, the French Charles Talleyrand, in the 19th century.
Now we don’t have to wait for the news to arrive on horseback –
it’s blogged and dissected immediately.

Thus with Prince
Charles’s latest intervention in the BBC’s Thought for the Day
slot on the Today programme this morning. On the surface it was all
about tolerance and the worrying rise of extremism, particularly
religious extremism. Since the talk was pre-recorded on Monday, it
was not prompted by the outrage in Berlin later that evening, but
within minutes it was being parsed as a veiled attack on political
loudmouths such as Donald Trump and Nigel Farage.

“We are now seeing
the rise of many populist groups across the world that are
increasingly aggressive to those who adhere to a minority faith,”
the prince intoned. “All of this has deeply disturbing echoes of
the dark days of the 1930s … Whichever religious path we follow the
destination is the same: to value and respect the other person.”

Charles was clearly
thinking more of the killers of Isis than ostentatious Islamophobes
such as Trump. For his opinion on the orange-haired president-elect,
we will probably have to wait for the eventual release of his private
diaries some centuries hence, or at least the leak of a private
memorandum such as the one describing the Chinese leadership at the
time of the Hong Kong takeover as a set of “appalling old waxworks”
– though he is unlikely to want to upset the US in quite the same
way. It would, however, be interesting to be a fly on the wall if and
when the new president pays a call on the Queen and her heir,
supposedly some time next summer – though Trump will probably waste
no time in tweeting that encounter of his own accord. Both the Queen
and Trump are Scottish landowners, so that should help the
conversation along.

The Queen and
Prince Philip: ‘Their longevity is a tribute to modern medicine and
the robustness of the royal genes but a change of reign is not too
far off…’ Photograph: Stefan Wermuth/Reuters

Of more significance
in Charles’s broadcast was his reference to the story of the
nativity – and that was pointed indeed. It unfolds, he said, “with
the fleeing of the holy family to escape violent persecution”, and
he added for good measure that the prophet Muhammad migrated from
Mecca to Medina in search of religious freedom.

The prince has
studied Islam, its beliefs, practices and art, long before 9/11 made
it fashionable to do so. It was one of the reasons why more than 20
years ago he spoke about being a defender of faith when he becomes
king, rather than defender of the faith – a statement that caused
the established church, whose faith he will be defending, conniptions
at the time.

Today’s broadcast
indicates that he is at least not planning to convert any time soon.
In some ways it echoes the Queen’s recent Christmas broadcasts,
which have mentioned her own faith increasingly frequently in recent
years, though maybe a lifetime of discretion makes it doubtful that
she would go quite as far as her son in highlighting the contemporary
resonances of the flight of Jesus and his parents. Farage might take
note, though – although he’d probably claim the baby Jesus was an
extremist benefit tourist who brought his troubles on himself.

This was not the
prince’s first appearance on Thought for the Day – it’s his
third over the past 21 years – there is a sense that the monarchy
is moving on. The Queen’s relinquishment of some of her royal
duties and charitable patronages, the news that she is not going to
undertake any more long-distance foreign trips, and indeed the delay
in going to Sandringham because she and her husband have not been
well, illustrate that she and the duke are now in their nineties.
Their longevity is a tribute to modern medicine and the robustness of
the royal genes, but a change of reign is not too far off and one day
in the not too distant future Charles himself will be making that
Christmas Day broadcast. If he carries on with the veiled hints, it
may be less soporific for a nation replete with turkey and pud than
his mother’s.

• Stephen Bates
covered the royal family for the Guardian for 12 years and is the
author of Royalty Inc: Britain’s Best-Known Brand (Aurum Press,
2015)